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architecture and design magazineSun, 02 Aug 2015 17:00:12 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2Apartment buildings by Group8asia clad in strips of travertine stonehttp://www.dezeen.com/2014/07/23/striped-living-group8asia-apartment-buildings-travertine-stone/
http://www.dezeen.com/2014/07/23/striped-living-group8asia-apartment-buildings-travertine-stone/#commentsWed, 23 Jul 2014 21:00:20 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=503113Vertical strips of travertine stone cover the facades of these apartment buildings in the Swiss village of Crans-près-Céligny by Group8asia, altering the appearance of the structures when viewed from different angles. Named Striped Living, the two buildings were designed by architecture firm Group8asia to join three others that have been completed as part of an evolving masterplan […]

]]>Vertical strips of travertine stone cover the facades of these apartment buildings in the Swiss village of Crans-près-Céligny by Group8asia, altering the appearance of the structures when viewed from different angles.

Named Striped Living, the two buildings were designed by architecture firm Group8asia to join three others that have been completed as part of an evolving masterplan for the village centre, which will eventually see a total of 15 blocks constructed in close proximity to one another.

Containing a total of 14 rental properties that range in size from studios to six-room apartments, as well as a nursery, the buildings were designed to respond to their densely developed context while referencing the village's traditional houses and farm buildings.

By installing the stone fins across the facades, the architects were able to restrict views into the buildings from the surrounding public spaces and to reference the material palette commonly used in the region.

"The vertical cladding addresses the issue of visual proximity. The masterplan allows buildings to be very close to each other, so a facade solution was required to solve this issue."

The depth of the narrow stone strips creates a dynamic optical effect. From the front, the surfaces seem open and transparent, but when viewed from an angle they appear more solid and monolithic.

In places, the vertical fins partially cover windows, while elsewhere they are interrupted by openings for further windows and balconies that are positioned to make the most of views towards the countryside.

"Voids and openings to the landscape are mainly placed at the corners to create terraces," said Du Pasquier. "This also allows sculpting of the volume and allows us to get out of the block effect."

Each of the apartments has a unique floor plan, with the irregular positioning of the openings on the facade revealing the variety of internal spaces.

"Different floors propose different layouts, so the facades follow the same logic and allow you to think you have your own little villa, even when these houses are for renting," added Du Pasquier.

Asphalt surfaces surrounding the buildings provide play areas for children, which also accommodate wooden platforms that can be used for casual seating.

Circulation areas inside the buildings feature cast concrete staircases that rise through openings in the textured concrete floors of the levels above.

Windows enable natural light to reach the corridors and lobbies at the centre of the buildings, with pebble-floored gaps providing visual separation between each of the individual residences.

Apartments feature wooden floors that contrast with stark white walls and fitted cabinetry, creating a neutral backdrop for the tenants to customise.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2014/07/23/striped-living-group8asia-apartment-buildings-travertine-stone/feed/1Coral House by Group8http://www.dezeen.com/2011/03/30/coral-house-by-group8/
http://www.dezeen.com/2011/03/30/coral-house-by-group8/#commentsWed, 30 Mar 2011 06:35:25 +0000http://www.dezeen.com/?p=122309Swiss architects Group8 have completed this residential block covered in pink sun screens in Geneva. Called Coral House, the project has a glazed facade that can be covered by fabric sunshades, which roll up into the window frames when not in use. The building includes 58 housing units and two floors of commercial space, spread […]

The Coral house is located in the Chandieu area, formed by a large urban block surrounded by Rue Giuseppe-Motta, Grand-Pré and Chandieu. The site is accessible by the main road Grand-Pré, this avenue lined with trees, cuts straight though the building block. The future underground parking will be accessible by the entrance of the adjacent building, the Azure center, located on the Grand-Pré road.

This new housing estate takes part of the regeneration of a former industrial site and completes, together with the Bamboo Residence, a large city block. At the intersection of the avenue and the Chandieu road, a public square supplemented by a fountain and a sculpture will be built in collaboration between the artiste Fabric Gygi and the architectural office ADR.

The building

The building consists of 6 floors, including a double attic (duplex apartments) and a single basement level. Coral house offers 58 housing units, from 4 to 6 room flats (kitchen counted as a room). The ground floor and the first floor are dedicated to commercial activities.

The construction aims to high quality standards in terms of space and equipments, as well as construction materials and coating. It also seeks the MINERGIE label, by using optimum insulation for the exterior envelope, and highly efficient technical installations (heating is provided by geothermal heat pumps; double flux air system is distributed through the ceiling – ERV). The use of a high energy standard allowed use to obtain 10 % additional net surface, compared to what was requested by the neighborhood plan.

The façade on the road front is entirely glazed, exposing the living rooms to the outside giving the impression that the building has been cut or like section in a doll house. The clients specifically asked for a building without balconies, the most suited solution capable to give an impression of the exterior was to have sizable sliding windows offering the possibility to open large sections of the façade. In the courtyard, each room is indicated by a window perforated in a roughcast wall with exterior insulation. The internal organization of the flats has been developed as typological system, which puts the hall in the center of the plan, allowing it to distribute all the rooms. The volume of the attic is designed as an object on a pedestal, its aluminum materialization tends to blend in with the sky.

Structural work elements

The structural system was sized not only to ensure stability of the building – including all seismic measurements-, but also to ensure a greater sound insulation between apartments but also between the apartments and the common areas. Therefore all bearing walls and slabs generally have a greater thickness than needed for regular stability requirements of the buildings.

All thermal insulation in the facades and roof has been sized to meet the MINERGIE label values, with a clear aim to reduce energy consumption and lower costs for consumers.

All windows in the courtyard were designed as «breathable» windows, meaning: coated aluminum frames with thermal breaks, last generation double glazing, with an additional third glass placed on the exterior in order to provide a ventilated space with a motorized window shade.

Heating and ventilation

The production of the heating and hot water is produced by a heat pumps supplied by geothermal boreholes. The apartment heating is a low temperature floor heating. The coils embedded in the concrete subflooring are fed by a dispenser located in the lobby, which modulates the temperature in each room based on their exposure or their size. In summer, the same network of coils can be supplied with cold water for cooling of the premises.

The ventilation is a type of «double flow system», fresh air (filtered, dusted, moisturized if necessary, heated) is prepared in the central and then fed into each room through a system in the ceiling located above the sanitary and hall. Meanwhile stale air, taken through the sanitary, is returned to central, where its heat is recovered by a heat exchanger, before being discharged.

This way, the air quality inside the housing is guaranteed at any time, without obligation to open the windows, and energy loss by ventilation is minimized.

See also:

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2011/03/30/coral-house-by-group8/feed/14Red houses by Group8http://www.dezeen.com/2008/12/20/red-houses-by-group8/
http://www.dezeen.com/2008/12/20/red-houses-by-group8/#commentsSat, 20 Dec 2008 11:03:58 +0000http://www.dezeen.com/2008/12/20/red-houses-by-group8/Architects Group8 have completed three houses in Crans-Près-Céligny, Switzerland. The houses are constructed from red, poured concrete. Each house has a sheltered loggia on the first floor as well as an open terrace. Here's some text from Group8: -- Red Houses The invasion of the individual villa type can be seen as a 'plague' or […]

Architects Group8 have completed three houses in Crans-Près-Céligny, Switzerland.

The houses are constructed from red, poured concrete.

Each house has a sheltered loggia on the first floor as well as an open terrace.

Here's some text from Group8:

--

Red Houses

The invasion of the individual villa type can be seen as a 'plague' or as the inevitable result of a continuous hybrid landscape; a landscape composed with nostalgic ideas of a country side that has been planned too much and a ever-growing suburban sprawl. The position of the architect in this case is delicate. Should he work within the given reality of this deteriorated situation? Or should he fight against it –refuse to build in this density and typology?

The red houses place themselves in this type of problem, planting another object in this saturated suburban landscape. In this case, the purpose would be not to build an object but a small 'ensemble': a little community of individuals who can, through the new scale of the intervention, constitute a good mixture of urban and landscape architecture.

The placing of the three unities follows that logic. Searching for the best orientation and geometrical relation among each other, the volumes appear as a geological landscape, somehow as if the whole settlement was thought out as a garden with three important stones.

These stones are earthy red. The coloured concrete gives that irregular impression of a material that has been poured and will evolve and change over the years. The colour works also as a distinctive characteristic in order to separate the ensemble from the surrounding eclectic architectures.

The geometry and the volume of each houses serves another purpose: to propose a rich typology, capable of creating an experience of diversity of spaces inside the appartments. The important loggias in each volume enhance this idea. Not only the villas possess exterior terraces but they also have these big loggias, and protected exterior space.

More Dezeen stories about Group 8:

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2008/12/20/red-houses-by-group8/feed/7Aviary by Group8 with Guscetti & Tournier structural engineering 2http://www.dezeen.com/2008/12/14/aviary-by-group-8-with-guscetti-tournier-structural-engineering/
http://www.dezeen.com/2008/12/14/aviary-by-group-8-with-guscetti-tournier-structural-engineering/#commentsSun, 14 Dec 2008 11:15:54 +0000http://www.dezeen.com/2008/12/14/aviary-by-group-8-with-guscetti-tournier-structural-engineering/Swiss architects Group8 with Guscetti & Tournier structural engineering have completed an aviary in the Bois de la Bâtie public park in Geneva, Switzerland. The aviary is situated on a separate island which limits the access of visitors, who follow a path around the aviary to view birds from all directions. The structure consists of […]

In the history of the zoos and animal Parcs, the aviary certainly holds a particular place. Frei Otto’s Munich Aviary and Cedric Price’s in the London zoo are two of the most significant and complex examples. Aviaries are about verticality and flying, they are about three dimensional space, they are about defining spaces for birds, not for humans.

Two more approaches are essential to the design of this peculiar house: the difficult ethical issue of caging, putting animals in a container partially for the pleasure of the visitors and that of creating a nature-simulator in order to reproduce some kind of natural-like environment.

These different points have initiated the base of the reflections for the design of a new aviary in Geneva. The first question was to position the new "building" on the site.

We chose to install the aviary on a small artificial existing island to limit the access to the visitors. The visitor have thus a strict, limited pathway to go through while the birds flow freely in the island, either in the interior or the exterior of the new aviary.

To avoid any kind of determined and one-way view of the birds and any central view giving a direct approach to the birds, we have worked on a free non-synthetic form, a volume difficult to apprehend and a sinuous path for the visitors.

The final shape is constructed from an abstract analysis of the existing trees surrounding the site. This first analysis has given the shape of the slab which will roof the birds. The slab is then taken 10m high to constitute an abstract roof.

To support the concrete slab, we have imagined and worked out a solution of tree-like pillars. These tree-like pillars function as space-structuring as well as the support for the birds. An important static and engineering work has been done in order to build up the structure calculations.

Following structural experimentation initiated by Gaudi and perfectioned by Frei Otto, the calculation method has consisted in going from intuition and free form to rationalism and modularity.This has been done mainly by model analysis. Navigating constantly between these two parameters has been crucial to the project.

Every one of the 16 pillars is unique, creating thus a very precise and fragile static equilibrium, as a bird standing on a small branch.

More Dezeen stories about Group 8:

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2008/12/14/aviary-by-group-8-with-guscetti-tournier-structural-engineering/feed/2Aviary by Group8 with Guscetti & Tournier structural engineeringhttp://www.dezeen.com/2008/07/10/aviary-by-group8-with-guscetti-tournier-structural-engineering/
http://www.dezeen.com/2008/07/10/aviary-by-group8-with-guscetti-tournier-structural-engineering/#commentsThu, 10 Jul 2008 14:31:46 +0000http://www.dezeen.com/2008/07/10/aviary-by-group8-with-guscetti-tournier-structural-engineering/Swiss architects Group8 with Guscetti & Tournier structural engineering are building this aviary in the Bois de la Bâtie public park in Geneva, Switzerland. Located on an island, the aviary consists of a concrete roof supported by tree-like metal columns, which also form perches for the birds. More about Group8 on Dezeen in our previous […]

In the history of zoos and animal Parks, the aviary certainly holds a particular place. Frei Otto’s Munich Aviary and Cedric Price’s in the London zoo are two of the most significant and complex examples. Aviaries are about verticality and flying, they are about three-dimensional space, they are about defining spaces for birds, not for humans.

Two more approaches are essential to the design of this peculiar house: the difficult ethical issue of caging, putting animals in a container partially for the pleasure of the visitors, and that of creating a nature-simulator in order to reproduce some kind of natural-like environment.

These different points have initiated the base of the reflections for the design of a new aviary in Geneva. The first question was where to position the new 'building' on the site.

We chose to install the aviary on an existing small, artificial island to limit access to visitors. The visitors have a strict, limited pathway to go through whereas the birds flow freely in the island, either in the interior or the exterior of the new aviary.

To avoid any kind of determined and one way view of the birds - any central view giving a direct approach to the birds - we have worked on a free non-synthetic form, a volume difficult to apprehend and a sinusoidal path for the visitors.

The final shape is constructed from an abstract analysis of the existing trees surrounding the site. This first analysis has given the shape of the slab which will roof the birds. The slab is then taken 10m high to constitute an abstract roof.

To support the concrete slab, we have imagined and worked out a solution of tree-like pillars. These tree-like pillars function as space-structuring as well as the support for the birds.

An important static and engineering work has been done in order to build up the structure calculations. Following structural experimentations initiated by Gaudi and perfected by Frei Otto, the calculation method has consisted of going from intuition and free form to rationalism and modularity.

This has been done mainly by model analysis. Navigating constantly between these two parameters has been crucial to the project. Every one of the 16 pillars is unique, creating thus a very precise and fragile static equilibrium following the polygon of forces, as a bird standing on a small branch.